Edouard Herriot

Edouard Herriot (5 July 1872-26 March 1957) was Prime Minister of France from 15 June 1924 to 17 April 1925 (succeeding Frederic Francois-Marsal and preceding Paul Painleve), from 20 to 23 July 1926 (succeeding Aristide Briand and preceding Raymond Poincare), and from 3 June to 18 December 1932 (succeeding Andre Tardieu and preceding Joseph Paul-Boncour). He was a Radical Party politician.

Biography
Edouard Herriot was born in Troyes, France on 5 July 1872, and he became well-known as Mayor of Lyon, serving from 1905 to 1940; as Mayor, he improved relations between the city government and local unions, increased public assistance funds, and launched an urban renewal programme. In 1924, he led the Radical Party in forming a "Left Cartel" with the SFIO, and, while the coalition eased tensions with Germany, it failed to deal with inflation, the national debt, and the unbalanced budget, and differences over economic policies between the Marxist SFIO and the liberist Radicals led to the government having six cabinets from April 1925 to June 1926. Herriot's premierships lasted only ten months from 1924 to 1925, three days in 1926, and just under seven months in 1932. In 1940, he was exiled to Nazi Germany for opposing the collaborationist Vichy regime during World War II, but he returned home after the war's end in 1945. He immediately returned to serving as Mayor, serving until his death in 1957 at the age of 84.